


Palimpsest

by ReaperWriter



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Lost Year, Spoilers through New York Serenade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 13:49:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1472131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Palimpsest-marks left behind when something is build on the foundation of what was there before.</p>
<p>In the days after her memories are returned to her, she notices it.  Maybe it’s his near constant presence.  Maybe it’s the way the two realities are merging and fusing in her mind, like the molten sand glass left by a lightning strike on the beach.  Little details of her other life, her false life, that were infused with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Palimpsest

**Author's Note:**

> Not my property, just playing.

In the days after her memories are returned to her, she notices it. Maybe it’s his near constant presence. Maybe it’s the way the two realities are merging and fusing in her mind, like the molten sand glass left by a lightning strike on the beach. Little details of her other life, her false life that were infused with him.

The first time she went for drink with Wal..with that person…thing. Whatever. She had gone for a drink, and had ordered rum, like she always did. Only, she didn’t. Emma, the real Emma, had been a whiskey kind of woman. She was much more likely to drink Jack or Jim or Crown, or, if things were seriously less than optimal, Wild Turkey. She liked a good glass of wine, but for a situation calling for either fortification or lubrication, whiskey was her go to. But again and again, throughout that year, she found herself ordering Captain Morgan, or Kraken, or Bacardi Oakheart, and drinking it straight.

The night of the near engagement, her dress had been tight, black leather, worn almost like armor. Leather was nothing new. After all, she had her well-worn, well-loved red leather jacket. But during the year, black leather had crept into her life. The dress. A longer black leather trench coat. Sturdy black leather boots, which could both dress up a pair of jeans or kick in the door of a bail jumper. A black leather belt, studded in silver. Even a black braided leather bracelet she wore sometimes. When she packed for Storybrooke, she left almost all of it in her closet in New York. Well, except her black leather gloves. Storybrooke was cold this time of year.

Even little elements of their lives. The set of old chains she had bought as decoration, so like the ones in Anton’s lair in the Enchanted Forest. Henry’s weird and sudden appreciation of a CD of old sea shanties. Her predilection for coconut water. A need to make sure all the salt in the house is sea salt, because it tastes right. How often, on a quiet Sunday, she and Henry found themselves out on of the harbor ferries. Their Labor Day long weekend at a vacation rental on Fire Island, when they couldn’t get enough of the waves and the sea.

Now, looking across Granny’s at him, she thought back to her doorway and the kiss. That felt right and true for a second before Regina’s spell broke through and she stopped it. The sensation of déjà vu had stayed with her as he had popped up again and again, and in the end, more than the pictures or the camera in the apartment he had sent her to, made her take the potion.

She found herself wondering if it had been Regina, planting things in their memories as a fail-safe, or if Hook…Killian had made that sort of impression on her. What it might mean. She wasn’t ready to put a name on it or quantify it yet. But it was definitely something she would keep thinking about.

 


End file.
